Dani sighed, then the car fell silent. Dani’s brain whirred with thoughts, but she really didn’t have many answers. She looked at the clock on the dash. Nearly four p.m. The day was quickly catching up with her, she realised. She’d been due to take her pills more than an hour ago but had forgotten. It wasn’t like her to not keep to her regimen. She relied on the medication more than she would ever have wished, and first day back on the job she felt she needed them more than ever.

With the thought planted in her mind, Dani felt a stinging pain in the front of her head. As she drove on, her vision intermittently blurred to white. Then her hands began to shake on the wheel. She squinted, pushing the growing feeling of nausea away, trying to refocus on the road ahead.

‘Dani? Are you ok?’

‘Yeah, fine,’ she said, his voice bringing her back around, out of the fog.

What the hell was that?

‘So what do you reckon?’ he asked.

Dani’s mind finally cleared. She took a gulp of air. ‘That I’ve no idea what’s happened to Grace Agnew, but it’s really not our concern right now. We’ve got three other missing persons that could be our Jane Doe. We need to check them all out. We have to find out who she is. Otherwise we may never find out what happened to her.’

Chapter Ten

Thoughts of the last few months cascaded through Dani’s mind as she splashed her face with cold water, hoping it would do the trick of reinvigorating her. She’d just downed the pills she should have taken nearly two hours ago, and taken some extra painkillers to try and quell the growing throbbing in her head. It was nearly five p.m. She could call it quits for the day. No one would mind, would they?

But then she wouldn’t be doing herself justice. She still had a job to do. She hadn’t gone through nearly twenty-four months of rehabilitation for nothing. She’d gone through it to prove she could still be her. Could still be DI Stephens.

‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ she told herself out loud, before heading for the exit.

Dani stepped outside the toilet and spotted Easton casually leaning against the corridor wall, waiting for her.

‘You sure you’re ok?’ Easton asked.

‘Piss off, Easton,’ Dani said, storming past him. She was angry, even if she knew it was only because she was afraid he’d spotted her vulnerability.

He set off by her side, not in the least perturbed by her response.

‘We’ve known each other for less than a day,’ Dani said. ‘I don’t need you checking up on me. If there’s a problem, I’ll damn well tell you.’